It’s nice when you live in a Congressional District as red as CA-01 to hang out with your political homies.
Somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 people showed up to the LaMalfa Town Hall in Nevada City yesterday, and it seemed a good 80-90 percent were there to show resistance to the Trump administration and LaMalfa’s complicity with his policies.
The most emotional, effective moments for me involved people telling their stories about benefiting from subsidized health care. There were a couple speakers who literally said they would have died without the Affordable Health Care Act. LaMalfa listened, but really did not have a direct response for these folks — he claimed ACHA would offer “more choice,” but like Republicans across the country, he really couldn’t say “don’t worry, you won’t lose your health care, folks.” He mumbled something about wanting amendments to ACHA, but overall, it seems LaMalfa will be a supporter of the Republicans current replacement plan.
I was extremely heartened to hear a strong message from the audience on climate change. Speaker after speaker challenged LaMalfa’s record on the issue. Two moments really strike me — one is when he was asked directly if he believed in human-caused climate change (he responded with a mealy-mouthed no). The other was when La Malfa asked a speaker what specifically he should do about climate change, and the speaker shot back immediately, “Don’t eliminate the EPA!” This drew a standing O.
There were some other great moments as well — school teachers opposing school vouchers, an emotional plea for LaMalfa to reverse his position on allowing grizzly bears to be shot from helicopters in Alaska — and several small business owners who expressed concern about how immigration bans and an ACA repeal will negatively impact their bottom line.
Those on the left dramatically outnumbered and out-organized LaMalfa/Trump supporters. But I found myself wondering, will this turn into electoral change in 2018? We are an extremely red district, and while many residents here stand to lose health care if the ACA is repealed, La Malfa has still managed to win landslide victories despite past insanity.
Is there a viable candidate to run against LaMalfa? Is there a group organizing to find one? Opposition candidates in other California districts are already starting to come out of the word work...where is ours?
LaMalfa is unlikely to change his core beliefs. If we don’t find someone to take his place, we may find ourselves at another Town Hall meeting two years from now saying the exact same things.